Cupcakes in the Park

Have you ever had one of those days when you look back and think “How on earth did we get here?”  Troy, E and I recently set out to spend an afternoon relaxing in London’s Hyde Park and wound up discovering so much more.

It was a gorgeous Sunday in London Town and a little picnic in the park sounded like the perfect way to enjoy our time.  We hopped on the Northern Line train to Leicester Square, switched to the Piccadilly Line headed for Hyde Park and made a last minute decision to go one stop further to the Knightsbridge underground station.  After all, if we’re going that direction anyway, we really should drop in at Harrods, right?

The department store boasts seven floors and 4.5 acres, in total, of pure luxury – clothing, accessories, housewares, food halls, and restaurants, anything you could want – and happens to hold a few funny memories from my childhood as well (I may have stolen a bike bell from there in my early days…by accident, of course, but it’s on my list of accomplishments none the less!).

Troy had once visited Harrods while in town on business last fall but didn’t have a chance to truly experience the store. (I had told him how I used to love looking at (never bought!) the dresses there when I was a little girl, and so he decided to surprise E with her own baby-sized Harrods dress…major daddy brownie points!)

The excuse for this visit was the Food Hall – the perfect place to assemble a picnic for our day out in the park! It’s quite a sight and a most delicious sort of hustle and bustle.  The scrumptious sandwiches, fancy sparkling lemonade and beautifully presented desserts were calling our names…especially the vanilla cupcake with yellow frosting and a white flower that just seemed like the perfect little treat for E! (I don’t know what we were thinking.  Until that point, E had only had “natural sugars,” and we had had no intention of giving her the other sort for the foreseeable future… we caved. But really, it was oh, so worth it.)

We grabbed our Harrods bags and headed for Hyde Park, stopping long enough to eat our sandwiches at the pond and wear E out splashing in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.  We then marched right on through the rest of the park and into Kensington Gardens, where across the grounds, we stumbled upon Kensington Palace and quickly waved hello to the Duke and Duchess and Prince George.

Next came the Princess Diana Memorial Playground (it turned out to be a royal filled day!!), and finally, we settled on a perfectly shadowed hill overlooking the Italian Fountains – a lovely little spot for an afternoon nap and fabulous sugar high!

E LOVED her delicious Harrods cupcake and happily would have eaten all of it – not to mention mine and Troy’s as well. She fought her dad for each additional bite; her delighted grin melting away his baby food rules nibble by nibble.  (Oh, we are SO in trouble!)

I’m not sure what made us continue walking all day rather than claiming our spot at Hyde Park early on, but the evolution of our plan and extra treasures we discovered along the way were far better than anything we could have planned!